Despite what he would tell you, he’s not human. And even though his feet bear an uncanny resemblance to my own, nope. Not human. Even so, he is most assuredly 100% mine.
So, let’s get down to it, shall we? Soon after I adopted Japhy at least one friend swore she saw some Great Dane in him. And I, along with others, thought that he just had to be part Labrador Retriever. At one point, looking at him from behind I thought I saw Boxer in the shape of his head and ears. Well, guess what? NONE of these guesses is correct. I could have sworn his results would come back with some Lab in them. Nope. He is not one bit Labrador Retriever. I also expected him to have more breeds in his ancestry than he has. I’m not sure why. I just did. But Japhy has exactly THREE breeds in his lineage. The first and most significant one is also the most obvious one: American Pitbull Terrier. He is 53.2% APBT.
He comes in at only 16.4% is American Staffordshire Terrier. I also had pretty much guessed this one would be in there somewhere. But if I’d known he was only a combination of three breeds, I’d have guessed that this one would have been a higher percentage.
And... coming in at 30.4% is....
German Shepherd!
Yep. I was reminded today that on one of his surrender forms from the shelter a previous “owner” had indicated that he was a Pitbull-German Shepherd mix, but I honestly thought it was a joke. I mean, he doesn’t look it, and the rest of the surrender form was a joke anyway—labeling a puppy as “aggressive” and complaining because the puppy knocked over a toddler. *sigh* Anyway, I’d pretty much written off that breed description as pure silliness, but as it turns out it’s correct. And not only is it correct, but Japhy actually has a pretty significant amount of German Shepherd in him. It just goes to show you that you really can’t tell just by looking at a dog what breed(s) they are.
I’ll let you look at the results for yourselves...
Japhy’s Family Tree
The information that Embark provides is fairly detailed. Below is a screenshot I made of his family tree. I actually received his Health results yesterday, before his Breed results were ready, and his Health report came back 100% clean. Yay! It’s a huge relief to know that he is not at an increased risk for any of the common breed-specific health issues.
Embark also revealed that Japhy has a 3% COI (Coefficient of Inbreeding), which is good. According to the Institute of Canine Biology,
“[I]n terms of health, a COI less than 5% is definitely best. Above that, there are detrimental effects and risks, and the breeder needs to weigh these against whatever benefit is expected to gained. Inbreeding levels of 5-10% will have modest detrimental effects on the offspring. Inbreeding levels above 10% will have significant effects not just on the quality of the offspring, but there will also be detrimental effects on the breed.”
Traits
The screenshots below show how Japhy’s genes play out in his traits.
Relatives
Just like Ancestry.com for humans, you can actually find your dog’s relatives on Embark. Of course, the database isn’t as extensive (yet), but I did find one “close relative” of Japhy’s. Grace was adopted at the Nebraska Humane Society in Omaha in February of this year. She’s older than Japhy by a few months, it seems. And she definitely takes on more of the German Shepherd look.
Anyway, I found all of this to be very interesting, and most importantly I know he’s genetically healthy. It’s helpful to know a dog’s breed(s) for training purposes and to better understand a dog’s behaviors. While it was obvious without knowing what breeds Japhy is that he is a strong, loyal and stubborn thing, it’s actually pretty helpful to know that his lineage consists primarily of not just one but two extremely strong, loyal, bull-headed working dog breeds. This makes total sense as it relates to Japhy. Remember the agility course training we were doing? He took to that SO quickly, and I’ve never known a Pitbull to really be into that kind of thing (though I know it’s not unheard of—do a Google search for Rocky the Pitbull). Perhaps that was a bit of the GSD kicking in. Who knows. All I really know is that I have one hell of a dog. He is 100% unique and I’m head-over-heels in love with this quirky 65.7-pound-and-counting velcro hippopupamus dude.
Until next time... sending light and love to everyone in our pack out there, wherever you may be. Take care.
